Harbaugh clan's most super fan is grandfather

The news conference was all about Jim and John Harbaugh, but their 97-year old grandpa, Joe Cipiti, stole the show. The spry gentleman, who was born in Italy and moved to Cleveland in 1920, was wearing a half Ravens and half 49ers hat and got up on the stage to pose for pictures with his family.

Cipiti is splitting his loyalty though he may lean toward the 49ers under different circumstances. When Jack Harbaugh coached at Stanford in the early 1980s, Cipiti moved out to be close to his daughter and her family. A retired auto mechanic, he got a job doing maintenance at Stanford. Even though the Harbaughs moved, he stayed on for 17 more years. He now lives in Cleveland and attends many games, dressed either head to toe in purple or red-and-gold depending on which grandson he's watching.

Deer-antler guy ends up caught in headlights

Greetings from outside the media center, where there's a guy in a sleeveless shirt and ski cap waving reporters over. Mitch Ross, the deer-antler spray guy, would ramble on in a bizarre, wild-eyed fashion to different reporters for almost two hours on the sidewalk.

Ross, the owner of a company called SWATS (Sports With Alternatives To Steroids), apologized to Ray Lewis for this week's Sports Illustrated report and said that he never actually saw the Ravens' linebacker ingest deer-antler-velvet spray. (The spray contains a substance, IGF-1, that is banned under the NFL's performance-enhancing drug policy.)

He contradicted himself often, wouldn't answer certain questions, and once showed Lewis' cell phone number on his phone, only to say, "Wait, that's another Ray Lewis." Ross got the publicity he wanted, but fumbled and kicked it into the middle of the street.

Feds protect NFL from knockoffs

"Operation Red Zone" is likely to wind up as a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sly Stallone. It's the combined effort of three federal agencies - Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security and the Border Patrol - to bust the folks who sell knock-off Super Bowl souvenirs.

The operation raked in $330,000 worth of goodies in the Bay Area alone. So our borders and airports have been less-protected and our anti-terrorist security has been thinned, but we've protected the NFL from the dude selling $5 Sponge Bob Super Bowl T-shirts on Canal Street. I am now free to buy a $36 licensed T-shirt.